Frozen Wings
by The JP
Summary: Joseph wakes up one morning to find out that everything about who and what he is has changed. But how? And why? T for safety.
1. Chapter 1

**Alright, so this is a new fanfic. I kind of ran out of ideas for my Upon Wings of Fire fanfic, and the Storming Wings fanfic is giving me writer's block, so I'll write this one in the hope of getting ideas and ridding myself of writer's block. We'll just see how it goes.**

**Disclaimer: I may be a guy, but I'm not James Patterson. Q.E.D I don't own Maximum Ride.**

**Claimer: All OC's belong to me.**

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I woke up to my combo alarm clock/Ipod speakers blaring out music. I hit snooze about five times before finally getting tired of it and getting out of bed. I shoved on some jeans and a t-shirt, and wormed my way out of my room and going downstairs to get some breakfast. Once that was done, I grabbed my backpack and headed outside, waiting for the bus to take me to school.

Oh yeah, I guess introductions would be _really_ nice. I'm Joseph Cryonas, just an average high school sophomore in California. My parents weren't movie stars, and none of my friends' parents were either. Just a bunch of average kids in Los Angeles, city of the stars.

I even look pretty average, to boot. Sure, I'm about six feet tall, but that's the only thing about me that's cool. My eyes are boring old brown, my hair is boring old brown, my skin tone is only slightly tan, and I'm not the strongest, fastest, or most athletic person in the school. I'm one of the smarter ones, to be sure, but that didn't win any popularity points.

Throughout the school day, I dealt with people either ignoring me, being rude to me, or just flat-out going out of their way to annoy me. It sucked. That's what my life was like. Sucky. Really sucky.

But this is _Los Angeles_. This is one of the strangest cities on the planet, where all sorts of crazy stuff goes down. And sure enough, crazy stuff went down. And I don't think very many people out there can say that they've experienced something crazier than I did.

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I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I couldn't tell whether or not this was a dream, or whether it was real. But all I _did_ know is that it was a nightmare. So that meant it was just a dream, right?

In this weird waking dream, I had been on my way to the bus stop when a black van pulled up next to me, and strange people poured out of it, injected something into the back of my neck, and pulled me inside. I went unconscious in the van.

The next thing I knew in the dream, I was strapped down to some table, while somebody was examining my body and injecting tons of needles into my arms. I'm not sure what he was doing, or what the needles were for, because right then the dream blacked out again, and I reappeared in a dog cage. 

In the dog cage, I was surrounded by even more dog cages, all filled with people… or creatures that resembled people, actually. There were men in white lab coats walking around the area, writing stuff on clipboards. I remember looking up at one and asking him to get me out of there, and he just walked right on by without another word. The dream blacked out again… and that was it.

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I woke up in a cold sweat. _Phew,_ I thought, _it was only a dream. Just a really, really bad dream that I hope I don't ever have again._

I checked the clock: 5:30. My alarm hadn't even gone off yet. Why was I awake then?

I scrambled out of bed, put some clothing on, and went downstairs to get some breakfast. I don't know why, but I was incredibly hungry right then. I wound up eating an entire box of cereal, which was really weird. I'd never eaten that much in one sitting before.

I went upstairs to go brush my teeth, and when I saw myself in the mirror, I froze. I blinked. I blinked again. I tried to see if I was wearing contact lenses of some sort. Nothing. I pinched myself; I was awake all right. But that wasn't possible!

My eyes had become an ice-blue color overnight. I don't mean blue like most people, but these were like an icy-blue color. Imagine a glacier. Put some blue in it. That's what color my eyes were, and there weren't colored contacts in there or anything!

I was too freaked to respond. I sat back down on my bed, opened up my computer, and started to search for anything that would make your eye color change. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. After a while, I put down the computer, and five minutes later I headed towards the bus stop. I tried to avoid eye contact with anybody, and the few people that did notice my eyes said something along the lines of nice contacts. I didn't get what was going on.

At school, I just couldn't get a normal day. Marco, the jackass of the school, just had to choose a sophomore to try and beat up today. Well what do you know; I'm the lucky sophomore!

I had just finished closing my locker after grabbing my books at the end of the day when I felt something strange going on behind me. I don't know how to describe what I felt, but I rolled quickly to the left, and just barely avoided Marco's fist.

"What do you want Marco?"

"Nothin, homie! I just want some cash! Think ya can spare some for yo homie?"

I spit. "My homie? Like I'd ever hang around scum of the earth like you. They make toothpaste for a reason, you know."

That witty comment definitely wasn't the best idea. "You asked for it, homes. Now come and take your beating!"

Marco came at me with what I guessed was all of his force, but something was off. Either he had gotten really weak and really slow all of a sudden… or I'd gotten really strong and fast. None of his blows were hitting me; I was dodging out of the way with insanely fast reflexes, and I had no idea how I was doing it!

Eventually I got tired of playing keep away, and decided maybe I'd try stopping him. I dodged a left hook of his, and followed up with my right fist straight into his chest. I heard something like bones cracking, and Marco was sent flying back five feet across the hallway!

I heard murmurs of excitement from everybody in the halls of Beverly Hills High. I didn't know how I did what I had just done; I'd never done any weight training of any sort, nor were my reflexes ever as good as they had been just now. What the hell had happened?

"Hey Joseph, what happened here?" I turned around and saw Will, the class president. He was one of the more popular people here, simply because he had an amicable personality.

"I… I don't know," I said. "All of a sudden Marco comes at me, and I was able to dodge every blow he threw, and I know my reflexes aren't that fast, and then I hit him in the chest with a punch, and I think I cracked a rib or two, but I know I'm not that strong… I've got to get out of here. I've caused too much of a scene."

With that, I grabbed my backpack and bolted out of there, straight to the bus. I rode the bus home, wondering what the hell had just happened. I got a few claps on the back from people on the bus telling me it was about time somebody knocked some sense into Marco, but I wasn't so sure. I was more scared than anything. What the hell was happening to me? First my eye color changes overnight, and then suddenly I'm super fast and super strong? What else was different?

When I got home, I headed straight for the shower. I turned it as hot as I could, and stepped in. That's when the weirdness pretty much culminated.

I reached up to scrub my back, and felt something… how should I say this… feathery. Yeah, that's right: feathery. I reached up around my back, and the feathery feeling was everywhere. I reached up over my shoulders, and my hand touched something that wasn't there the night before.

I felt a joint coming out of my back. What the hell?... I could tell it was attached to my body, and that the skin by the joint changed seamlessly into feathers. I knew that there were muscles in it, and I tried to extend them.

I wasn't quite sure how to react. I was standing in the shower, had felt something weird on my back, and next thing I knew… I had wings.

**Well what do you know… it's a cliffhanger. The Flock will **_**eventually**_** come into the story. That means later on, for those who can't read in between the lines.**

**As usual, read & review. Thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**So, what did you all think of the first chapter? It only took me about 15 minutes to type it up, strangely enough…**

**Anyways, you guys see the little green button? Yeah, he's got anger management issues. I suggest reviewing so he doesn't rip your face off.**

**Disclaimer: I'm not James Patterson, ergo I don't own Maximum Ride**

**Claimer: OC's are all mine. You understand me? Good.**

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I couldn't believe my eyes. And by that, I mean I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing. I pinched myself, slapped myself, held my breath for a minute, slammed my head into the shower wall (ow), but I finally realized I wasn't dreaming.

I had wings. Coming out of my back. With feathers. And they were freaking _huge_. The feathers were all the same color as my eyes had become, fading to blue at the bottom and to white at the top.

I tried to move them. Sure enough, they did. I was so incredibly freaked out right now, I could have wet myself. I'd gone to sleep the night before a perfectly normal human being, and the next day I have ice-blue eyes, I'm super strong, my reflexes are insanely fast, and I've got wings with ice-blue feathers.

_What the hell was going on? How is this even possible?_

I finished washing myself off, turned the shower off, pulled the wings tight against my back, and shoved on a shirt and some jeans. I turned to see myself in the mirror. _No wonder nobody could tell anything was different…. If I didn't know they were there I'd never guess there were frickin _wings_ on my back…_

This was something that my parents and my brother Spencer couldn't know about. They would just freak out. My mom is a lawyer and my dad is a surgeon, so they both would go completely insane over this. And my brother… I don't even want to get started on that. He's about two years younger than I am, and when he was 7 he would pull out a slingshot and shoot birds in the backyard. And now that I had these… wings… I shuddered at the thought.

I may have been confused, and incredibly, insanely confused at that, but I still knew I had to figure out how to use these wings. What's the point of having them and not being able to use them anyways?

I hurriedly did my homework (who needs that stuff?) and decided it was time to learn how to fly. My parents wouldn't be home for a while; they were at my brother's soccer game, which thankfully was over two hours away by car and didn't start for an hour. I had the house to myself for a nice, long time.

We happened to live right near a small, forested area, which was very lucky. I went up on to the roof of the house and took off my shirts until I had just my undershirt on. I unfurled my wings, noticing how they looked in the fading sunlight. I hoped that whatever had given me these things would help me fly.

I started running forward, and heard a strange voice in the back of my head. _Jump and beat your wings simultaneously._ What was saying that? I didn't know; I didn't care. I just did what it said.

_Beat your left wing slightly faster than your right._ I did whatever this thing said; I turned left. _Now reverse. _I turned right that time. Whatever this voice was, it was teaching me how to fly!

_Slightly move the feathers at the tip of your right wing._ I banked right when I did that. _Now reverse._ I banked left.

_Straighten out your body; try and feel for updrafts of hot air. Those are thermals. Hold your wings rigid to glide a little bit._

How did this… voice… know how to fly? And how was it telling me what to do? When I really thought about it, I realized that I didn't care. I actually couldn't care less. All I cared about was the exhilaration of the wind running through my hair, looking down to see the world below me, realizing that I was free to do what I wanted.

I peeked at my watch, and forgot to beat my wings for a second. I'd been flying for over an hour! I turned around and headed straight back to my house. _Crap, I hope my parents aren't home yet…_

I was just getting ready for another shower (flying _is_ exercise, you know!) when I heard the door open. Seems I got back in the nick of time…

I got into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and locked the door. I turned the water as hot as it would go, and once it heated up, I leaned up against the wall. And if things weren't strange enough already…

Suddenly the water became ice-cold. I jumped up, and it returned to its normal hot temperature. _Huh…_ I pressed my hands up against the wall again, and closed my eyes. The water had gone icy cold again! _What the hell is going on?_

I didn't spend too much time on the thought. I just got out of the shower, spent the rest of the night doing anything that didn't relate to birds and wings because I think I'd gotten my fill already, and eventually went to sleep. I didn't know it then… but tomorrow was going to be a _long_ day.


End file.
